


Ignored.

by FeliciaAmelloides



Series: A Oneshot a Day... [109]
Category: Lord of the Flies - William Golding
Genre: Angst, Death, Jack Being an Asshole, M/M, Modern AU, Ralph Being Insane, Repressed Memories, Simon being adorable, Supernatural Elements, Too Much Exposition, Trauma, school au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-18
Updated: 2018-04-18
Packaged: 2019-04-24 19:18:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,304
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14361918
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FeliciaAmelloides/pseuds/FeliciaAmelloides
Summary: Ralph and Simon are best friends, right?Ralph knows everything about Simon, right?Ralph isn’t the only one who can see him...right?





	Ignored.

**Author's Note:**

> I love modern school AUs.
> 
> This is inspired heavily by Earily’s Oculus (South Park, many disturbing themes which are listed in the introduction before the first chapter) which you can read here- https://www.fanfiction.net/s/10763837/1/Oculus
> 
> However, mine isn’t quite the same (not as dark, not as well-written, kind of more like The Sixth Sense but not quite).

Night always brought back memories for Ralph. Haunting, tragic, disturbing memories, of events which never transpired. Things which never happened. People who never died. He had learnt not to trust such memories. They were just nightmares, he told himself. Just bad dreams he took too seriously.

But one night, something felt rather different. 

It started out normally. Ralph was sitting up in bed reading a book by torchlight, just as usual. This time he was reading ‘ _The Catcher in the Rye_ ’, a book which bored him to no end yet somehow made him not want to put it down. He read until fatigue blurred the words on the pages, dulling his senses and drowning his thoughts.

A noise, sharp and clear, cut through the darkness of Ralph’s mind.

“Hello?” It was a voice. A very familiar voice, yet at the same time the boy found he couldn’t recall who it belonged to. 

“Ralph.” He turned from his book to the voice. There, standing before him, was a boy. A boy with dark hair, green eyes and skin like caramel. Someone familiar, yet compellingly strange.

_Simon._

“Hullo.” Ralph said casually, not particularly concerned by Simon being in his room so late at night. People often were. It wasn’t that unusual.

“You can see me? Hear me?” Simon seemed surprised at this. Ralph wondered if he was alright.

“Of course I can. Why wouldn’t I?” The other boy’s eyes widened and he looked around furtively before approaching his old friend.

“Ralph... I hate to put this on you, but could I stay here for a while? I can’t be at home right now. I’m sorry, but it’s impossible to explain.” The nervous tone in the former choirboy’s voice was infectious, and soon enough Ralph was feeling anxious too. He nodded, glad that his father probably wasn’t around enough to notice.

“Sure. As long as you don’t bother my father.” Simon nodded so quickly that his dark hair bobbed alongside his head. 

That was the night that things changed.

From that night onwards, Simon stopped speaking. Ralph didn’t know why, only that it was important that he didn’t speak. He began to write in a notepad which the fair-haired boy had never seen before, communicating only through that and gestures. Eventually Ralph decided to teach both of them sign language to make communication easier. They struggled, but learnt as quickly as possible how to do such things so Simon’s lack of speech wouldn’t be a problem for them.

By the time school started, Ralph had noticed that no one else seemed to pay attention to Simon. He brought him into school one day out of curiosity, and although people stared they didn’t seem to actually acknowledge Simon’s presence, as if he wasn’t there. It was strange, but Ralph supposed it was just some kind of sick prank. Simon had been bullied frequently throughout school. He was disliked by the majority of the student body. This was clearly some new scheme to make him feel unwelcome.

Soon the bullying turned to Ralph himself.

“Why are you moving your hands like that? It’s creepy!” They’d jeer, clearly too stupid to understand what sign language was.

“Stop talking to yourself!” They’d order, forcing him to participate in the ‘act like Simon doesn’t exist’ game. He’d frown and tell them to fuck off. Simon would always shoot him a grateful smile after that, glad that he was finally being defended.

Ralph’s friends began to worry about him. He spent less and less time talking to them and more standing in the school gardens with Simon, enjoying the warm sun and beautiful spring flowers together. They stayed there often, since it was one of the few places that Simon could relax a little. He looked so tense and afraid all the time, jumping at the slightest of noises and trying to hide behind Ralph as much as possible. The blond boy didn’t know why he did this, but he wanted to make him feel safe and so he didn’t protest against it.

After some time, Ralph’s friends stopped talking to him entirely. They didn’t tell him why. Probably he had been roped into the ‘ignore’ game for associating with Simon. He didn’t care.

More time passed, and Ralph became even more isolated from his peers. He got in trouble with school for disrupting class, picking fights, screaming abuse at teachers when he realised that even they were ignoring his unfortunate best friend. No one at school liked him anymore- he was an outcast. And home wasn’t much better. With every report of misdemeanour being sent home, Ralph would get twice as many disappointed looks from his father until eventually it became his regular expression. Simon felt guilty about all of this and tried to encourage Ralph to talk to other people to, but he didn’t listen to him. He didn’t need anyone else.

The final event which led to Ralph’s total isolation from society was a particular conversation near the end of the school year. Jack Merridew, resident asshole of the student body, had him cornered against a wall and was trying to provoke him with stupid questions.

“Still talking to your imaginary friend, freak?” He smirked, making Ralph want to punch him in the face twice as much and twice as hard.

“Leave me alone.” He spat out through gritted teeth. Not in front of Simon.

“He’s not real, you know. That’s something you should have learnt when you were six.” The jab got to Ralph immediately, and he tried not to let it show. People were such assholes, and he hated them for all for ignoring such a sweet, kind, innocent boy like Simon. He hadn’t even done anything wrong. So why...? Somehow, Ralph couldn’t even remember what Simon had been like before that crucial night. Were they even friends?

Of course they were. He answered Jack’s taunt, “Stop acting like this. You know as well as I do that he is real and what you’re doing is stupid. You’re being immature.” Jack gave him a look of incredulity before bursting into laughter. The sound made Ralph hate him even more.

“Ooh, so defensive! Sorry if I offended your little ghostie friend!” He exclaimed through maddened laughter. The taunts weren’t even that bad, but they got to Ralph a lot more than they should. He shot a glance at Simon, who was anxiously looking Between Jack and him whilst trying to find a way to end the conflict. He quickly started to scribble something down on his notepad.

“Simon is _not_ a ghost. And he’s _real_ , goddamnit!” Anger exploded out of the fair-haired boy in the form of a yell, echoing down the hallways as Simon began to whimper nervously at the mention of his name. Jack, on the other hand, just stared at him with wide eyes.

“Simon...?” He asked very slowly, expression darkening more and more by the second. Ralph glared at him heatedly.

“Yes. You know, the boy you’ve been ignoring for the past year?” Without saying another word, Jack leaned forward and slapped Ralph in the face. Hard.

Face stinging and Simon rushing over to him to try and help, Ralph began to see red. However, he wasn’t the only one.

“That’s who you’ve been pretending to talk to this whole time? Simon?” Jack’s voice was eerily calm, yet held undertones of malice. Ralph didn’t respond. The redhead already knew his answer. He came dangerously close to Ralph’s face, fire alight in his pale blue eyes, “Simon. My best alto and the nicest person I’ve ever known. And _you_ , the asshole freak who _killed_ him, decide to taint his memory by using him for _attention_?” Jack became louder and louder as he spoke, passion vibrating under every word. 

“What the hell are you talking about? Simon’s not dead! He’s right there, asshole!” Ralph gestured angrily to where Simon was holding up his notepad. The words ‘ **Please don’t fight!** ’ were written in big neat letters in the centre of the page. Neither boy noticed them.

Jack screamed in frustration and launched himself at Ralph, hitting and punching and yelling something about ‘desecrating Simon’s death’. Ralph immediately joined in with the fight, hitting back just as hard as he yelled at his own opinions about everyone’s harsh treatment of the dark-haired boy over the years and how much he hated them all for it.

Meanwhile, Simon flitted between the two of them, trying to break apart the fight yet not knowing how. Since his tongue had been forcibly removed, speech was impossible, yet he really wanted to talk in this instance. The frustration radiating from the two boys got to him, and he too began to feel angry. But rather than resorting to violence like his friends, he took deep breaths and tried to remain calm. It seemed like he needed to tell Ralph the true reason why he had come to him all those months ago.

Suddenly there was more shouting and teachers were pulling the kicking and screaming boys apart, yelling at them both to calm down while trying not to get hurt in the process. Simon just watched from the sidelines, desperate to help yet powerless to do anything. If there was one thing he hated the most out of everything he’d seen in life, it was that. 

“Ralph, I’ve told you for the fifth time now. Simon died a year and a half ago. He was caught in a car accident on his way home one evening and died instantly upon impact. He’s gone, Ralph.” The headmaster had informed him angrily after lecturing him for an hour about the importance of preserving a deceased student’s memory instead of using it for personal gain. Ralph didn’t understand any of it. Simon wasn’t dead, and he wasn’t using him for anything! Why was everyone else so stupid?

When the two got home, Ralph’s father wasn’t even there. Clearly he had given up on trying to make his son become a better person. Ralph sighed in exasperation and sat down on his bed. Simon shuffled next to him, curling into his side. He always seemed to be cold no matter how many blankets Ralph piled on top of him, but cuddling up to his best friend made the cold go away a little. If Ralph could do that for him, he didn’t mind giving us his arm so the boy had something to hold onto.

“Why are people so stupid Si?” The fair-haired boy asked softly, staring up the hundreds of plastic glow-in-the-dark stars on his ceiling. Simon scribbled something down on his notepad, then held it up for Ralph to see. 

‘ **No one is stupid. People just look at the world differently, and that changes the way that they understand things.** ’ Wise words. Ralph smiled at Simon’s seemingly never-ending flow of wisdom and knowledge.

“Alright then. Why are people so ignorant?” Again, Si wrote some words of wisdom before holding them up.

‘ **People see what they want to see.** ’ And again, Ralph couldn’t disagree with him. He was right as always.

“That’s true I guess. But... they’re calling you dead.” Simon’s breath audibly hitched. Ralph turned to gaze into his incredibly vivid green eyes. His chest did something funny.

Simon sighed, looking at the blanket before turning back to look at Ralph. He closed his eyes, opened them again and started writing:

‘ **This won’t sound relevant at first, but I need to tell you a story:** ’ Ralph nodded to show that understood, intrigued and terrified at once by the implications of Simon needing to explain why people called him dead.

‘ **You and I have known each other since we were seven years old. The day we met was one of the best days of my life. I’ve always really appreciated your company, and eventually I began to appreciate it a little more than I should have.** ’ Simon was blushing and looking kind of distressed at that. Ralph stared at the words on the page with wide eyes until the other boy quickly turned it over and continued.

‘ **Last year, I told you this. I didn’t know about your mom or about the situation at school. If I did, I wouldn’t have said anything. I’m so, so sorry for that.** ’ Ralph cocked his head to one side in utter confusion. School had been about average until he realised how Simon was treated there. No situations of any kind. And his mother hadn’t been around since he was born. What possibly could have happened to her that Simon recalled and he didn’t? Then again, he didn’t really remember all of the time he spent being friends with Simon, so something definitely wasn’t adding up.

‘ **This is the part I’m guessing you don’t recall: We got into a fight when I told you. You said I was being stupid and irrational, and I got upset too easily. I ran off, and ended up not looking where I was going. You ran after me, of course you did, but it was too late.** ’ This time Ralph didn’t know what to say. He remembered none of this as Simon had said, but he didn’t understand it either. Why would they be fighting over something like that? If Simon liked him... He blushed at the realisation that he wouldn’t actually mind. Simon gave him a little bit longer to process this before adding the final part to his expositional story.

‘ **A car hit me. I didn’t survive.** ’ Time slowed down. Ralph could do nothing but stare. The words ‘ _no, no_ ’ flew through his head in an endless loop as he looked at Simon in both disbelief and blind terror. It was then that Simon hit the nail in Ralph’s coffin by writing a simple, damning statement on his paper:

‘ **I’m dead, Ralph.** ’

**Author's Note:**

> Plot twist! 
> 
> Well, not really...
> 
> Although it’s implied here that Simon is a ghost, he could also be a figment of Ralph’s imagination created to cope with the trauma of losing his best friend, something he subconsciously blames himself for yet is also in denial over. He repressed all memories of Simon’s death and the other stressful events occurring in the same time period- Simon himself represents Ralph’s subconscious trying to persuade him to conciously come to terms with his death and move past it as a better, stronger person...
> 
> ...or he could actually be a ghost trying to do the same thing to show his love for Ralph- his unfinished business was making sure that Ralph was alright after his death.
> 
> Prompt- Imaginary Friend (dubious reality).
> 
> I focused on the ‘dubious reality’ aspect here more than the first part, which I think made the plot more interesting. Still, it’s a bit weird I suppose.
> 
> Original Number- 283.


End file.
